GTA 5 has shipped 45 million units to retailers

Rockstar Games shipped 45 million copies of Grand Theft Auto 5 by the end of 2014, publisher Take-Two has announced.

Even more impressively, 10 million of those were PS4 and Xbox One remastered versions of the game – which by 31 December had only been on sale for six weeks.

The announcement was made in tandem with Take-Two's financial results for the quarter, which saw a drop over the same period last year – but only because of the enormous initial release of GTA 5 on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2013.

Net revenue was down from $1.86 billion (£1.22bn) to $531.1 million (£350.5m).

First released on 17 September 2013, the initial release of GTA 5 saw the game's sales eclipse those of its predecessor in just six weeks, before going on to sell 29 million units to retailers by October 2013.

This means that six million units were sold between November 2013 and the new gen remaster's release one year later. The figures show just how huge a series Grand Theft Auto is and how it dominates sales in the period after its launch.

It's clearly a game people want as soon as its released. Not many are willing to wait for it to drop in price. The fact a remaster of a game a little over one year old sold so well also goes to show the power of Rockstar's crime epic.